Various jigs, templates, and hand and power operated machines exist for producing dovetail joints. Such a joint typically is used when making drawers and boxes. Reference is made to FIG. 4 which shows two workpieces W1 and W2. A first workpiece W1 has shaped pins 2 at one end and mating shaped tails 3 are at the end of a second workpiece W2. The pins 2 fit into the tails 3 with the ends of the boards being transverse to each other and woodworking glue usually is placed in the spaces where the pins and tails mate to form a secure joint for the two boards. A half blind joint is shown in FIG. 4, that is, the pins 2 extend only part way through the thickness of W1 so that the tails 3 are not seen from one side of W2. On an open type joint the pins 2 would be cut all the way through W1 and would be seen from both sides of W2.
One way for making the dovetail joint pins and tails is to use templates that are generally designed to clamp to the ends of the boards. The boards are held on a workbench so that the collar of a bit of a hand held router can be guided by the template in cutting the pins and tails. There usually is a separate template used to produce each of the dovetail pins and tails. Dovetail machines are more complex and often include one or more stationary router bits, a fairly complicated clamping arrangement for the boards, and a mechanism for sequentially moving a clamped board towards and away from the one or more router bits while simultaneously shifting the one or more bits stepwise to one side to produce the pins and tails at the end of each board. Such machines are often fairly complicated and expensive and also are somewhat difficult to learn to properly operate.
Other types of machines and jigs also are available for forming the pins and tails for a dovetail joint. In using such templates, jigs and machines a different shaped router bit is usually used for making each of the joint pins and tails.
A need exists to provide a craftsman with a jig for forming the pins and tails of dovetail joints that is simple in construction and operation and also is relatively inexpensive.